


Allura In Love

by ElementKitsune



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding Moments (TM), F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Romance, the mice are gossipy helpers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 00:50:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12353985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElementKitsune/pseuds/ElementKitsune
Summary: Love is a distraction in the middle of war. Unfortunately, Allura's heart doesn't seem to get the message.(Allura is more than a little bit in love, and keeps trying to deny it)





	Allura In Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/gifts).



> Made for the vldlunarladies event on tumblr.

They’re crumbling pillars, waiting for the world to come crashing down.

* * *

The problem is that Allura _knows_ it shouldn’t be like this.

The problem within _that_ is she’s not exactly sure what this is—whether or not what she means by _this_ is the empty hallways resounding with sound, the soft tap of her heels feeling impossibly large and overwhelming in a castle for the dead; whether _this_ is the quiet way Shiro buries his face in her neck and doesn’t quite sob but lets the full body shudders overwhelm him as she idly runs her fingers over old, jagged scars.

What she means by _this_ is perhaps all of it together, a quiet castle with nightmares— _memories,_ she thinks instead, because she remembers all too well how Altea had burned in the moments before she froze for centuries—filling it to the brim until the walls practically shriek with the force of it.

_Look how powerless you are_ , they seem to say to her and to Shiro and maybe to all the rest. _Confined to being lesser by nothing but yourself._

(and maybe later, when she is in her room, with Shiro sleeping peacefully at her side and his face miraculously not crinkled with thought, when she's lying awake with worries of things greater than they could ever hope to be—)

(maybe she thinks the doubts and fears in the back of her mind are right)

* * *

Allura wakes with the mice pressing their snouts against her face and hair, Shiro a steady presence by her side and his Galra-given ( _tainted,_ her thoughts whisper, and she doesn’t disagree) arm resting on her vanity.

The type of quiet they have now is peaceful, only occasionally disturbed by Chulatt’s whistling snores and how Plachu tends to sneeze in his sleep.

She thinks of moving, but Chuchule is firmly clutching at her nose and Platt is leaning against her neck and she is terribly, terribly comfortable with Shiro’s arm around her waist. She closes her eyes for a moment, enjoying the warm swell of affection that curls up like Father’s crooked smile after a particularly well-executed escape.

She feels like Allura the girl instead of Allura the leader, Allura the princess of a people long dead even though there’s no place for sentimentality outside of this moment. No place for admiring the lack of worries on Shiro’s face, in her heart, even in the thought-feelings that the mice tend to send along.

Just the distant thrum of happiness running through her, small and content beyond anything she’s felt for what seems to be eons.

She lets a hand cup Shiro’s face, the other switching between the mice to pet their fur as they nuzzle at the palm of her hand.

_I love you,_ she could say, could tell it to the air, could let it dissipate through the castle until it reaches farther into space and dying stars and the planets that Voltron has freed, right up to the farthest reaches that Zarkon has destroyed or conquered.

She could but she doesn’t, just makes herself swallow around the desire to speak all she thinks.

(a lesson in restraint. Something she’s been learning more and more since her home was ripped apart)

Allura drops her hands to her sides and closes her eyes.

(perhaps she can continue to dream of being Allura the free instead of Allura the dutiful)

* * *

Back to work, she knows, when Shiro opens bleary eyes and the mice start to stir.

The moment breaks.

* * *

“Princess?” Shiro calls on from the doorway as she maps out plans of travel, lets worlds drift around her in their pale blue models while steadfastly ignoring the urge to sleep.

She only turns her head when Plachu starts his angry squeaking, thoughts striking at her mind like the Galran mines that had latched onto the Balmera and refused to leave.

_\- princess tired princess sleep -_ he chides, and she pointedly tosses her head forwards, loose strands falling out of her bun and down her face and back.

The ticks stretch to doboshes and something that feels like vargas but aren’t, not really, before Shiro finally sighs out her name in the way he tends to do when someone is pushing themselves too far too fast, and she can’t help but think she isn’t doing _that_ much this time.

She says as much and his sigh turns into laughter, a string of chuckles that reverberate through the room enough to elicit a squeak of approval from Plachu despite his chittering of how Shiro had been brought here to convince her to rest instead of going along with her every whim.

“ _Are_ you going along with my every whim?” she asks then, and lets him take her hand only to kiss the top of it. He glances up at her through his eyelashes, dark eyes focused solely on hers.

And then a small, small smirk finds his way onto his lips, even as Plachu runs up their arms so he can nest on the top of her head.

“Depends on the whim,” he murmurs, and Allura doesn’t resist the urge to scoop him up in her arms, causing him to give a startled gasp and to place his Galra hand far, far too close for comfort. She kisses him anyway, on man and machine alike.

_I love you,_ she thinks he almost says, his arms now looped around her neck and rest of his body completely relaxed in her arms. _I love you_ , she almost says back, but they’re cracked shields and swords—made of fractures that stretch all the way into their atoms and back out again.

They are cracked and dutiful, and the possibilities she can see in him are not for this reality.

(she wishes otherwise)

(Allura wishes for a lot of things that won’t happen)

* * *

(she can’t help but lean into him later, feel him wrap his arms around her waist and let herself simply stay quiet in his embrace, full of something that she knows the name of but refuses to speak)

(it never quite manages to go away, no matter how much she wants it to)

* * *

“You know you don’t have to cut yourself off from everything that makes you happy, right?” Pidge says in the silence, on a night like many others—they tend to be the only insomniacs that don’t wander the halls.

Allura purses her lips and turns her best haughty look at Pidge, thinks of how this young Earthling had sacrificed who she’d used to be and more for her father and brother and a love that burned brighter than supernovas.

“You’ve done the same,” she murmurs instead. “Even if it was for a love different than mine.”

Pidge doesn’t give her a verbal response, but the sound of her clacking away at the laptop is answer enough.

They’re in this quiet for many more vargas with worlds slowly hovering ‘round in their tiny holographic forms. She can see the known universe, the _conquered_ universe, and it stretches out farther than hope can reach.

She’s staring at the stars inside and out when Pidge musters up another response, surprisingly vacant of the sarcasm that coats her every word like a veneer of antidote or poison.

(not even Pidge is sure of which is which, she muses. Sometimes the words are even both)

“I didn’t sacrifice _them_.”

* * *

Those were dangerous words, Allura reflects later, when everyone is awake and she can’t tear her gaze away from Shiro no matter how hard she tries.

He catches her eye, and smiles in a way that she _knows_ is meant only for her. Others can look upon it, but this is for Allura and Allura only in the end.

Her cheeks warm purple, blood in her veins rushing far too fast to her face, and she is _so close_ to breaking, so so close to admitting outside of herself that she loves.

So close, but she ultimately still doesn’t say a word.

* * *

When she comes back to her room, Shiro is sleeping peacefully with the mice on him in various haphazard positions. She laughs at first, feeling contentedness bubble up in her, but is then struck with the sudden realization that her feelings have seeped far deeper than expected, that being just Allura has somehow turned into being Allura who is hopelessly, foolishly in love.

(when had they started to room together? When had she become a shield against his nightmares and he against hers?)

(how had she become accustomed to this so slowly that she hadn’t realized at _all?_ )

Allura doesn’t sleep that night.

Instead, she retreats to where Pidge is almost always content in merely co-existing, and lets herself stare and stare and stare at the stars until she feels like she’s almost as blinded by them as she was by herself.

Crumbling columns aren’t meant to support each other.

* * *

“Can I join you?” Shiro asks before the castle wakes everyone, when Pidge is long gone and there’s only Allura left to keep looking at the stars and wondering if she’ll be like a star in the end, ending the problem of _this_ in blazing light.

(Altea used to send its dead to the stars. They’d believed in returning them to the stardust they’d came from)

(she wonders if her people had made it to the stars when their planet was condemned to die)

_No,_ she wants to say to Shiro, because her thoughts are too dizzying and too much in her mind, waiting to be sorted through but always pushed down down down because she can only support so much in the end and the universe deserves _more_ than an Altean princess who can’t keep herself composed.

“Yes,” she says instead, because the truth is that Allura has always been damnably weak.

Shiro puts his hand on hers as he sits down, and she can’t stop herself from lacing their fingers together as she thinks of dying stars. _I love you_ , she almost, almost whispers, only realizing it wasn’t an almost when he ends up saying it back.

_Quiznak,_ she thinks with startling clarity, because she can’t—

—she can’t—

“I can’t,” she breathes when the words come unbidden, air fading from her lungs like it’s the last exhale she’ll ever have. “I can’t love you. Not with the war.”

Shiro’s expression doesn’t change. He merely smiles at her, soft and sweet and sad, unlaces their fingers only to gently run his thumb over her knuckles. “I know, Princess,” he murmurs, and places a kiss onto the palm of her hand. “I’ve understood from the beginning.”

She could stop him, she knows, cast him away with a simple flick of her hand because humans are so _fragile_ compared to Alteans, with bones that could snap under her fingers if she wanted to do so.

She doesn’t stop him, because the quiet acceptance in his eyes and the way he gently rests her hand on the ground before getting up to leave wounds her more than any Galra ship could ever hope to.

_I love you_ , she had said, and that truth had sunk into the castle walls until she’s come to the point where she can’t go anywhere in her castle without the words being echoed back at her and Shiro’s quiet acceptance floating through her thoughts.

When everyone wakes up, and they get ready for the day, she thinks the worst part is the smiles he still directs at her, open and free and still something that she knows is for her like it had been before. Like she hadn’t just tried to destroy everything between them.

_I love you,_ she thinks, even as it feels like that fact escapes into space, into the universe, into the hearts of dying stars. She loves him even as she refuses to let herself have him.

(there’s a secret, almost ugly part of her that knows he’s still hers anyway, even as she buries the potential as deep as it’ll go. That part of her is what lets her be content even as she yearns for far, far more)

(thankfully, no one has to know)

(Allura can’t help but feel selfish)

* * *

It’s another late night with Pidge when Allura hears a sound that’s part sigh, part growl, along with the distinct noise of Pidge closing their laptop.

“I won’t listen,” she says flatly, and practically feels the force of Pidge’s glare at the back of her head.

“I know to how to bribe the mice to my side.”

Allura _doesn’t_ twitch, but that is a result only brought through sheer effort and the staunch refusal to show weakness if it can be avoided. Instead, she ever so slowly turns her head towards Pidge and resists to urge run faster than an angry pack of hilners. And considering those creatures were vicious and _quick_ , she wanted to leave very badly indeed.

Then Pidge sidles up to her like they’re as close as yelmors, and Allura quietly resigns herself to doom.

“Okay, I’m only gonna say this once—” Pidge tilts their head. “Or, well, no, I’m gonna say this a lot because odds are that you’re gonna need to _hear_ it a lot unless Hunk works his magical guilt trip powers on you but _either way_ —stop torturing yourself.”

Allura sniffs and remains obstinate. “I have no idea as to what you’re referring to.”

“Allura, stop. What’s even the point? I mean, you’re—you’re just— _why?_ ” And the problem with this is how Pidge’s voice slowly becomes more unsteady, until it’s cracking and they’re stuttering out broken up words. Allura’s not sure how this went out of line so quickly but there is more blabbering and _emotions_ until it ends up with Pidge quiet and still against her arm which makes Allura focus on the _thump thump thump_ of her heart, until it hurts so badly that she’s tempted to shrink it to lessen the ache.

Instead, she leans her head against Pidge’s, and lets time stretch out until she musters up the will to answer.

“I can’t,” she sighs, a whoosh of air until she almost feels as empty as she thinks she should be (because how long has she been punishing herself for feeling? How long has she been keeping herself from _wanting?_ Far, far too long). “The universe deserves better than distracted defenders.”

Pidge is pensive for a long, long while, before they look up and Allura is reminded of the fact that this is the person who would have let the universe fall for two men because they loved them so, so much.

“Don’t defenders of the universe deserve something that makes them happy too?” Pidge asks, and Allura is struck with thoughts of how young they are, of crumbling pillars and dying stars and a chill ten thousand years long.

“Not heroes who were gone for too long,” she says quietly, and moves to stand, drifts out of the room like something is carrying her far, far away from this place of vulnerability.

“Allura!” Pidge calls, and she finds herself stopping involuntary (feels the cryopod’s chill sinking in) at the sound. She turns her head ever so slightly, and Pidge is looking at her, quiet and intense and with a grief that Allura knows too well to ever name. “Heroes can be happy too.”

Allura breathes in, breathes out, and puts on her best diplomatic smile.

“Try again tomorrow, paladin.”

Behind her, the door quietly slides shut.

* * *

When Lance swaggers into the control room with a cocky grin on his face and an eyebrow raised in that way that means mischief of _some_ sort (it reminds her of Blaytz, she thinks, and then crushes that thought into dust), Allura puts on her best stern _for the love of all that_ **_you_ ** _love, what is it now?_ face and lets herself look at him.

“Allura, mi amor, mi corazón, mi alma, mi amiga, mi—” Lance jumps a little, and Allura slowly takes her finger off of his lips. (the smirk on _hers_ remains, though begrudgingly)

“Yes?” she asks, all mock frowns and quiet amusement as Lance waggles his eyebrows at her. Then the smile slowly fades from his face.

“Can we, uh, can we talk about a thing?” Lance wrings his hands towards the floor, and Allura can’t help but narrow her eyes in response.

“What _thing?_ ” she prods.

Lance groans, but he eventually moves his head up and meets her eyes. “The _Shiro_ thing.”

Allura doesn’t successfully prevent the twitch that time, can’t completely ignore that the words _Shiro thing_ make sparks travel through her bloodstream in a way that’s she’s not entirely sure she likes.

“What Shiro thing?” she asks, but her voice is pitched too high and her cheeks are too purple and all it results in is Lance giving her the most unimpressed look she’s ever seen, even more unimpressed than the time Father had snuck her out to explore the capital for a day and Coran had found them sneaking back in with mounds of paper work in his arms.

“Bi—” Lance starts to say, but it turns into a cough and a quiet mutter of _nope not that meme right now._ “Princess, I have five older siblings, two niblings, an army of cousins, and _eyes._ You’re gonna have to do better than that to fool me.”

She huffs and perhaps shoves him a bit harder than she means to considering the way he stumbles back far more than intended.

Lance ends up giving his shoulder a thoughtful glance, announcing, “Okay, I’m kinda into that, but I’m _more_ into you and Shiro being happy together.” He winks at her, does his signature finger gun pose, and Allura is very, very torn between laughing hysterically and pushing him out the door.

“Did Pidge put you up to this?” she asks instead of answering, and Lance is grinning very shamelessly when he reveals the mice as his true informants. Traitors, the lot of them.

She briefly contemplates throwing them out the airlock, or at least letting all five of them be uncomfortable on a planet for a varga or two, but then Lance is wrapping his arm around her shoulders and starting to braid her hair as the mice burst out of wherever they were hiding. It’s rather difficult to stay mad at them all when they are so, so good at grovelling without seeming like it.

Lance smoothes her hair back and starts to comb it through his fingers, tugging at minor snares even as the mice start to pull them apart for whatever hairstyle they had agreed upon. He hums a song under his breath, something almost like an Altean lullaby but distant enough that it’s simply… not.

“I think—I know I love him,” she says finally, when she’s drifted half-asleep from fingers through her hair and the quiet reassurance of the mice that _they’re here, everyone’s here, there will be no losses if you let your armour down._

“So why don’t you tell him?” Lance asks, and the tenseness that starts to form in her shoulders is gently undone by the kiss he places at the back of her head, soft and innocent and sweet.

“I did. I told him I loved him and then told him I couldn’t, and he took it far better than I think I ever could.” Her hands clench into fists, tighter and tighter until Platt squeaks with worry and drops himself onto her hand to make it bloom open like a flower. Allura catches him, gentle with her friend above all else.

\- _princess not careful_ \- Chuchule chides, then pries open Allura’s other hand to sit, small and defiant in her palm. Affection washes over her in waves. She raises both Platt and Chuchule to touch their heads against hers, giggles at Chulatt and Plachu as they eagerly scamper up her body to do the same against her cheeks. She doesn’t budge except for a smile as Lance finishes her braid with a _tada_ , placing his chin on her head and looping his arms around her neck.

“Y’know,” he drawls, and the mice all prod her with different tones of _listen, listen,_ so of course she listens just this one time. “There’s nothing in the contract of saving the universe that says you’re not allowed to fall in love, or that you’re not allowed to tell someone you love them romantically, or that being an awesome warrior alien space princess has this clause of as long as you don’t date the person you like.”

She snorts, jostles her shoulders the slightest bit so he yelps. “No one here exactly signed a contract, Lance.”

His head slides down hers until his chin is digging into her right shoulder and Plachu seems torn between swatting the boy for stealing his spot or just appreciating the softness of Lance’s hair. (he does both, in the end)

Lance’s eyes sparkle, the smile on his face half kind, half smug. “If there aren’t any rules and you’re not doing anything morally reprehensible, like, I don’t know, taking over the known universe or whatever, then why not go for it?”

Allura shakes her head, laughing but maybe feeling a bit more shattered than cracked.

“It’s more complicated than that,” she tells him, and Lance frowns, corners of his mouth sinking down his face and eyes furrowing in a way that he complains will give him wrinkles.

She pokes his brow unthinkingly, the shock smoothing out his features before he scrunches his nose at her, sharp and quick.

“Maybe it’s more simple than you think?” he suggests, and Allura shakes her head one more time as she stands and pulls Lance up, lets the mice nuzzle her cheeks and neck and hands and wherever they can reach to be quite honest.

_Maybe, maybe, maybe_ ricochets through her thoughts, and she can’t help but entertain herself with a moment of maybe if this reality wasn’t quite like this, maybe if she hadn’t answered _I can’t_ , but then she lets it dissipate like steam and thinks and thinks—

Thinks of _maybe_ s and _could have been_ s and perhaps the way Shiro looked peaceful on her mattress and in her arms so she can quietly lock those ideas away for a time when she’ll be in need of good dreams.

Thinks a little bit of how dangerous her paladins can be when they start to give her hope.

* * *

The next one, of course, is Hunk, because Hunk is as sharp as an Unilu salesman when he decides to show it. It also helps that her paladins (or more likely, her mice) seemed to be terrible gossips as far as Allura is concerned.

So when Hunk ends up alone with her in the kitchen and with none of his usual rambling sounds, Allura elegantly takes a seat and tells him to—what was that human saying again, ah, yes—to stop beating around the bush, as it were.

Hunk grimaces, even more pronounced than when Lance pouts, but he doesn’t argue as he turns to face her head on so Allura doesn’t complain about the grimace except for the slightest raise of her eyebrow. (human body language is sometimes fascinating, to be honest, the myriad ways they communicate by perceiving almost nothing)

“Alright, so I’m guessing you know what we’re gonna talk about considering Pidge already tried and I think they said they’d be bugging you every evening they got a chance and Lance had his heart to heart with you even though—well, especially since it was kinda a hair spa day and those tend to be the heart to heart days but _anyway._ ” Hunk breathes in deep and steeples his fingers together. “We are going to talk about feelings and denial of feelings—er, not that you’re in denial about loving Shiro, cause the mice kinda told everyone about the, uh, whole confession-except-no thing—this is about the whole why-won’t-you-let-yourself-be-happy thing since that’s pretty important.” Allura opens her mouth, Hunk shoots her a look, and she closes it again. “No, you’re not allowed to just run unless you honestly really, really can’t talk about this.”

She does _not_ want to talk about it, but it doesn’t mean she can’t. Allura resists the undignified urge to slump into her seat and block Hunk out until she can suppress everything again. (then again, her own mice seem to be traitors so that would likely fail anyway)

_Are you sure?_ she almost mumbles, but then remembers the last time she lost control of her words. Allura keeps her mouth carefully shut.

Hunk stares at her, stares and stares and stares until she realizes that she’s supposed to start the… _talk,_ and then he keeps staring until Allura is resisting the urge to fidget in her chair like a child.

When all that results from the staring is silence, Hunk sighs and gently nudges her. “We may as well talk about it now,” he tells her, and Allura doesn’t look up from the floor but instead nods, smaller than the tiniest shard of a Balmeran crystal, somehow still bigger than she feels right now.

“I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know why I’m running,” she says eventually, because that’s the truth, is it not? She calls this complicated and tells herself that she can’t but when she peers inside her heart and tries to capture the reasons, they all slip through her fingers and run back into their cage. “I know I love him, but I, I’m not entirely sure _why_ I…”

“Why you refuse to be happy?” he asks gently, like the brush of a juniberry petal against her skin, like petting the mice when their fur fluffs up.

Words bubble up and pop inside of her until all Allura’s left with is a single, tiny, “Yes.”

Hunk sighs, a sound that’s bemused and amused all at once. “What did you tell the others?” he asks, tone low and soothing almost as if she’s a wounded gaan backed into a corner. (perhaps that comparison is more accurate than she prefers to admit)

Allura looks at her hands, holding onto her knees tighter than is strictly necessary. “That the universe deserves better than late, distracted defenders. That it’s more complicated than it seems.”

He hums in response, and Allura feels her fingers loosen the slightest bit, dares to tilt her head up enough to see his face. It’s full of quiet acceptance, a sight that sends stab wounds through her heart when she thinks of Shiro and how easily he’d accepted her barely justified refusal.

“Do you believe that?” he prods, and the problem about Hunk and his prodding is that he has a way of getting under your skin and into your bones until the only thing you want to do is wail all your problems to the world and let him stand there as a comforting presence, a steady island in the storm of your emotions and worries and woes.

With that in mind, it only makes sense that she breaks. She’s a crumbling column slowly losing strength.

“I don’t think so,” she admits, and she feels drained and freed all at once.

Hunk stands from his chair to move next to her, urges her to shift until he’s in her chair and she’s curled up in his lap and into his shoulder with her hair blanketing them.

“I’m lost,” she mumbles, an open claim of vulnerability that seeps into the air around them but somehow is warded away by Hunk stroking her hair. It’s the first time she’s admitted weakness to a _real person_ in over ten thousand years, she realizes, and doesn’t stop herself from clinging to Hunk’s shirt.

“You’ll figure it out, okay?” His hug becomes just a bit firmer, and Allura is surprisingly grateful for it. “And even if you can’t do it on your own, you have all of us here to help.”

_I know, I know and I don’t deserve you,_ she thinks, but Hunk is holding her close and when she reaches out to the mice they are loving thoughts and permanence. All Allura is able to say is a thank you.

He clucks his tongue, but allows her to huddle into his shoulder and _doesn’t_ allow her to leave, so Allura takes what is given without saying a word against it.

* * *

When Keith shows up at her door, she’s not entirely sure what she’s expecting.

“Hello,” she says with her eyebrows raised, and Keith stares determinedly over her shoulder, fists clenched at his sides and knife on his belt.

( _Galra,_ she thinks before anything, but somehow doesn’t mind that the Galra is Keith)

“Hi,” he mutters back, and his gaze moves to the floor.

“Is there a problem?” Allura watches him curiously, sees Keith take a careful breath before settling his eyes on her.

“Stop hurting Shiro. And, just—stop hurting yourself too.”

He leaves quickly after that, storming down the corridor a bit like he’s running away. Caught off guard as she is, Allura doesn’t pursue the matter further; she simply watches Keith dash down the halls and thinks she might see flashes of red on his face.

Some laughter is startled out of her, and Allura thinks of what this is, how she was just _chastised_ by the red paladin. Tries not to snort at that, or the fact that all of her paladins except Shiro have evidently seen fit to comment on her stubbornness in one way or another.

Wonders how her restraint manages to last even after all of this.

(there is something breaking in her, she knows this for sure)

(the only question left is _what_ )

* * *

“What do you all think?” she ends up asking the mice, and they chatter amongst themselves while finding more comfortable positions. Platt ends up staying in her palm as he tends to do, but Plachu scurries to his spot on the top of her head as Chuchule and Chulatt take a shoulder each, and that’s when the mice voice their opinions.

_\- want happy princess -_ Chulatt squeaks, and the others erupt into agreement.

- _want princess not be dumb -_ Chuchule remarks, and Allura shrugs her shoulder with a huff. It only earns her a chitter-like laughter.

_\- want princess smile -_ Plachu grumbles, nestling himself further into her hair.

Platt places a paw over one of her fingers, looking right into her eyes. - _princess love knight love princess -_

_\- mice_ **_know_ ** _-_ chimes Chuchule, and she swats at Allura’s cheeks though it feels more like a pat. _\- princess know too -_

“I do,” she sighs, then wonders how many sighs were brought forth by this entire situation.  Her doubts end up travelling to them, a quiet melancholy that turns the room sad.

This somehow spurs Chulatt on, until there’s the sudden exclamation of - _princess is princess! is princess castle! is princess knight! all things princess things! -_ accompanied by Chulatt’s bouncing around the room until it comes to a stop by crashing into Platt.

She snorts at both the actions and the words, something she can’t imagine doing outside of her castle. “Shiro is his own person. Not mine.”

- _knight is knight is princess knight -_ Plachu says lazily, and pulls at her hair once. _-princess is princess is knight princess -_

Allura feels the blush on her cheeks rise unwillingly, and pokes Plachu. “Shush,” she says, because it’s somehow infinitely more embarrassing when someone else points out things you’ve been thinking.

Of course, that prompts all the mice (except Platt) to start singing Plachu’s words, because they’re all diabolical. Platt pats her hand and nods along, which is… arguably worse.

“I despise the lot of you.”

Chuchule coos, that annoyance.

Allura still ends up laughing.

* * *

When she goes to sleep, it doesn’t come. Instead, she lies awake with the mice on her vanity and hears nothing but silence. So she slips out from underneath her blankets, adjusts to the cold tile under her bare feet, and starts to wander the castle.

Allura can’t help but see ghosts in its walls, past galas and battles and simply _life_ that had been here so very long ago, leaving its echoes on her heart and in her home.

Perhaps no one had made it to the stars after all. The pink of her nightgown and her markings seem to be terribly fitting in this era.

Lost in her thoughts as she is, Allura doesn’t quite notice Coran until there are hands on her shoulders and an impressively bushy mustache right in front of her.

“Princess, what are you doing out of bed so late?”

Allura looks at him, then, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Coran tweaks his moustache and nods. “If that’s the case, then we might as well do some upkeep!”

He moves out to her side and offers his arm as an escort. Allura blinks back memories and the times that he had always proffered advice and a safe place when Father was busy, takes his arm, and lets him guide her down the halls like he had done so many times before.

It takes her about two doboshes to suspect that he’s leading her to nowhere in particular, but Allura doesn’t mind and they wander round and round and round until she feels ready to speak.

“What do _you_ think about the, er—” She delicately coughs into her free hand. “—the Shiro situation?”

Coran strokes his chin in thought, a pensive look fixed onto his face. “Well, I have to think about a lot of things, being the head technician on this ship. Mostly, if any changes in the system would result in something better or something worse for the castle. And this situation is a bit like being the head technician for Voltron, eh?”

He glances towards her at that, and Allura ducks her head. “Yes,” she murmurs. “I suppose it is.”

He hums, free arm swinging at his side. “With that in mind, we have to think about how dangerous it could be if we changed the crystals, as it were, against how wonderful it could be. Tell me, Princess, what do you think of those factors?”

Allura feels her brow furrow in thought, and maybe grips Coran's arm a little tighter. “It's dangerous as a distraction. Love like this, _romantic_ love, is what… it was the catalyst for all of this in the first place.”

“True. Now what about the wonders?”

She breathes in, fills her lungs with air before slowly breathing out. “He, he makes me happy. He makes me laugh and wards off my nightmares when it’s too much and the mice go to him when they think I’m being obstinate and _I love him, Coran._ ”

He pats her arm, face far too amused for the situation. “Do the wonders outweigh the risks then?”

Allura thinks, looks down at her feet and thinks and thinks and thinks and—

“I don’t think they do.”

Coran raises his eyebrow, and she continues the second part of that thought, the part that belongs to Allura the person instead of Allura the defender.

“I want to experience the wonders anyway.”

He smiles at her, soft and knowing, and that's when she realizes that they're at her bedroom door. “Then follow your heart, Allura. It's carried you this far.”

She blinks at him, and can't stop herself from breaking into a sudden laugh. “How do you always manage to get us here by the end of our talks?”

Coran taps the side of his nose, something that comes off as strangely mischievous. “There are some things that are better experienced than understood.”

And with that, he takes his leave.

Sleep comes easier this time around.

* * *

When Allura knocks on the door, she’s not entirely sure if Shiro will even be there. He has a tendency not to sleep in his room, to instead wander the castle at odd times or train until he passes out from sheer exhaustion.

So when the door opens and Shiro is there, bleary-eyed and messy-haired, Allura is caught off guard by how her heart goes _thump thump thump_ in her chest and the way her cheeks feel like turning purple.

All her thoughts swarm to the forefront of her mind, blurring together until the one that she catches is, “If you would let me, I would very much like to court you.”

Shiro blinks at her, slow and incredulous. “But you said we…” When his words trails off, he simply gestures his hand towards the both of them, something that makes her face bloom bright purple in shame.

“I know,” she mumbles, and resists the urge to call the mice as a distraction so she can flee far, far away from here and ignore the way his gaze makes her want to shrink in on herself and lean towards him for… _something_ all at once. “I said I can’t.”

“What changed?” he asks, all open curiosity and a quiet willingness to listen. Allura tries not to look away from the easy tilt of his head and the special Allura-only smile that he has on. (she wonders if it’s an accident, thinks of sad acceptance and a response rejected)

She smiles back at him, soft and hesitant. “I had sense talked into me earlier.”

A laugh seems to tear itself out of Shiro’s throat, a quick and sudden burst that leaves as quickly as it came. “They all went to you too then? The mice were pretty persistent.”

She can’t help but giggle of that, thinking of Platt’s solemn gaze and the badgering of the rest. “I can imagine. You would be surprised at their words if you could hear them.”

Shiro’s eyes gleam then, part from mischief and part from sheer _vibrance_. It makes her breath catch in her throat, because when she looks back on her memories, she honestly can’t… remember a single moment with him like this, where he looks like he’s carrying the world with ease instead of being knocked down by its weight on his shoulders.

It’s a good look on him, albeit strange in its rarity.

“Would you like to discuss this over a plate of food goo?” she hears herself ask, remembers how Lance had joked that eating and talking was a, a _date_ (that’s what the Earthlings called it), and takes the chance before she can convince herself not to.

His eyebrows raise significantly, but he ends up smiling at her, amused and confused and maybe a little hopeful all at once. “I’d love to,” he tells her. His hand slowly wraps around hers.

“You don’t have to be so careful,” she says, when his touch doesn’t change from featherlight.

He starts at that, eyes never leaving her face. “Before Voltron...” he says slowly, hesitantly. “After Kerberos, but _before,_ I—I didn’t have many chances to be gentle.” His Galra hand twitches at his side, and Allura unthinkingly reaches to take it.

“Very well,” she says, because declarations and confessions and honestly most words seem to pale in comparison to how she holds his hands in hers. “Shall we go now?”

Shiro stares at their hands, quiet for what feels like eternity. Then the silence, the awkwardness, the hidden barrier of _what if he says no, what if it’s too late, what if I ruined this for myself before it could even really start_ shatters to pieces with a single, tiny nod.

They hold hands all the way to the dining room, and maybe a little bit after.

* * *

They’re crumbling pillars, waiting for the world to come crashing down.

But somehow, two crumbling pillars manage to keep each other up.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
